1. In What Way Does The Media Product Use, Develop, or challenge codes and conventions of real media products?

From the initial lesson, Brad, Rich, James and I all decided that we wanted to create a piece of work that we would deem suitable to be seen on Channel 4. This would mean in keeping with a number of codes and conventions, however also pushing boundaries, and finding what worked for us, and what we thought would appeal to our target demographic. We decided it necessary to watch other indie documentaries, as our own would become; Pieces such as Super Size Me, Airline and Panorama episodes proved to be superb foundations on which we could build our own work upon by not only following their lead, but more importantly adjusting it, and working it to our preference, documentary and demographic.

As our primary piece was a 5 minute opening to a documentary we thought it of the up most importance to display a well rounded, and precise research of our chosen topic, of which can be seen on our blog.

Research was not only important, but also integral - Something of which we learned from watching other documentaries. The first 5 minutes must capture the audience, otherwise they will simply loose interest, so not only should the on screen content be interesting, but also informative, so as to allow the audience to understand and interpret the visual presence, our footage. In order to achieve an on screen stimulant for the audience, I suggested a fast paced montage, accompanied by music and voice over (picture). Not only did this display to the audience what was going to be in the documentary, the frames also reflected a realistic issue, due to the people in shot doing normal things, in normal places, for example, when the boy is rolling a cigarette in the park. Similarly the quick fire frames conjure different things to different Psychographics, allowing for the audience to
get thinking about the issue themselves, and what it means to them, a convention of other documentaries such as Panorama EG:

(Images Taken From Panoramas Death on the Med episode). Alongside the fast paced montage, we also had our fast paced soundtrack of which I created in Ableton Live. The use of music to emphasised the on screen display, and almost acted as a type of rhetoric for its on screen counterpart. However it also occurred to us that we could use some contrapuntal music, in order to create a moor darkened atmosphere at the start of the documentary, however we came to the conclusion that this would reflect badly upon our initial aims of creating a documentary that goes against the common convention, and stereotype of smoking within our modern day society. Moreover in Super Size Me, by Morgan Spurlock, the soundtrack was actually quite humorous and uplifting, of which possibly goes against convention, and our own, as we wanted to depict a seriousness without being too dark, or negative. Moreover we used the same soundtrack throughout, however used different sections of the track at different points, for example we used the softer, quieter parts of the song during the interview, and even turned the levels down, so as to allow the audience to hear the interview better. Similarly when we wanted to make the audience pay attention, we used the more bass like part of the song, so as to grab the audiences attention to the screen. Moreover the sound bed was used in not only editing the music, but also the voice over. This allowed us to make smooth transitions between the two, as well as allowing the correct levels to be heard. An Image of the music creating process on Ableton

Live.

Similarly when recording the voice over we ensured that we kept the same location so as to stop any anomalous sounds being heard at different parts of the voice over. I feel that despite it not being a typical convention, it is more just a necessity to achieve the quality of a professionally made product. Despite the voice over being rather good however, we had to make the tracks align with each other, and due to the different layers of track being used it was a rather tedious and messy process. Here is an example (highlighted) of where our track went.

As is evident from the picture, the voice over for some reason wouldnt fit on one single track, therefore it got quite messy looking at the end, however essentially it all fitted together well, and there were no issues regarding sound levels, as we simply selected all of the voice over tracks, and edited the sound the tools option. The main reason we did it this way is because we didnt want to use an on screen presenter, largely because of time constraints, but also shows like BBCs Panorama is largely presented via off screen narration.

Another aspect of which i feel we did successfully was transitions. A conventional transition used in

documentaries is fade to black, ad a normal fade, both of which can connote to a period of thought of which the audience can use to help interpret the previous shot. For example we did this in the clips during the interview with Mr.Withers, and Mike Hatton, due to the amount of varying information they gave.

Moreover this transition allowed us to remove, or cut any unneeded or unnecessary parts of the interview out, where the interviewee may of gone off topic, or they repeated themselves. However when the interview had finished, we typically used a fade to black or straight cut so as to signify that the interview was completely over. Similarly we also used another very common convention in the framing of our shots. We made full use of the cameras capabilities as well as our own throughout the whole process. For example we used the very simple, yet effective convention of The rule of thirds when framing our shots. This is evident throughout our documentary, some examples are below;

And below is an example of rule of thirds from the BBCs interview with the Vladimir Putin and another example from our researched, TV fly on the wall documentary, Airline;

The Rule of thirds was first documented as far back as 1797 by John Thomas Smith, regarding the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whom was in fact a painter. The rule of thirds is now a given convention in any piece of film, no matter the genre of content matter. Similarly as we also did, typically the rule of thirds is used with medium close ups. We did this to gain a sense of realism, and sympathy for the audience of the on screen persona. Moreover for Tom Krawecs interview in particular we did his interview in an office, with books and other educational tools in the background, this could be said to be subliminally giving Mr.Krawec a certain status as a scholar, or educated man, or someone that people are more likely to believe what he says, simply because of his surroundings.

Another way in which we almost made the camera do the work for us was in our close up shots. For example below is a shot I framed within the college refectory of a carton of Marlboro cigarettes.

I feel that the main point of success for this shot is not only its rule of thirds framing, however the use of the cameras manual focus. The cigarettes are in sharp focus throughout the shot, giving the connotation of their significance to the piece. Moreover i feel that by having the people walking in the background of the shot in poor focus creates a connotation of cigarettes role in some peoples life's, i.e they are in the foreground of their minds, as well as the foreground of the shot. Moreover i decided to speed up the footage by roughly 60%, this created an interesting piece of footage, as the cigarettes remained perfectly still amongst this seemingly hustle and bustle, again displaying their role in society, and that despite the ban, they aren't leaving. Similarly we also made use of establishing shots. Mainly these were used whilst talking about the place via the voice over to give not only an on screen representation, but to also allow the audience to see our filming locations and make a psychological link between the two places.

I believe we chose a variety of different styles of establishing shot and cutaways, which only makes for a more diverse and interesting watch for the audience. Similarly the style in which we depicted all of them can be seen. For example the Sixth form establishing shot was simply a close up of the colleges logo, largely because we couldnt fit in the whole college and it isn't very iconic to people who may not know where the college is, or attend. Secondly the Hollingsworth Tobacco logo was introduced to the audience with a pan upwards, this was intentionally done by myself to give the impression of someone looking up from the pavement to discover the store that they had never before noticed, again giving the connotation of awareness, a fundamental part of our documentary. Similarly while in keeping with common convention of documentaries I created titles for the interviews. This is simply to make the audience aware of the name of the interviewee and where they are from or their occupation. For example as you can see the Tom Krawec interview.

To achieve this i simply added in the text using Final Cut Expresss built in text generator. I then decided to add a white glow around the edge of the text in order to make it more visible to the audience given that in some cases, including Toms, the colours clashed. Below is an interview from the BBC, that has also included subtitles for their interviewee

Moreover by having the name of the person being interviewed it allowed me in the voice over, another common technique, to later refer back to an interview, or a person.

Magazine:

Our magazine is full of conventions as i have annotated around the article. We decided to go for quite an adventurous single image background of which i feel really paid off, and adds a modern feel to the article as well as a professional standard appearance. Another feature of which made our magazine article conventionally sound was the inclusion of the Channel 4 font, of which not only alludes to the channel itself, but also makes the consistency between our article and Channel 4 very good and professional.

Similarly Brad blurred the image, leaving the model (Rich) in sharp focus, this automatically sends the users line of vision to our primary focus. Moreover this was intended to engage the audiences interest to read further, as well as being both aesthetically pleasing and done to a high standard.

Here is an example of the inspirational we used in the creation of our double page spread. While there is noticable differences such as the persons direct mode of address, i feel that in the context of our documentary and our topic, we were able to achieve a very high standard, and included all of the key conventions. Moreover during my individual research i asked 5 people to judge which article they believed to be better out of the two; 3 - To us 2- Lily Allen article. This without a doubt is conformation of a good job. Radio Trail:

Our radio trail kept within the majority of parameters set by previous radio trails, and unlike both our magazine and actual documentary doesn't really deviate from any common convention. We had the same soundtrack as used in the documentary playing throughout, which creates a certain house style around both pieces, and increases the amount of cross media consistency. Moreover it was very important to say the program name, what channel it was on, and what time. Although this would seem obvious, we placed more emphasis upon the placement of this information. We chose to air it during the latter stages of the radio trail as is convention within the majority of other radio trails, adverts and trailers.

Here is our trailers manuscript: 1 in 6 of the entire population of the planet are smokers and 10 million cigarettes are sold every minute. Despite the uncountable amount health risks, smoking has been proven to reduce anxiety, paranoia, depression the risk of Alzheimer's, Senile Dementia and Parkinson's disease. Smokers also give back to society in a massive way, in fact if you smoke 20 a day for 20 years you will have already spent more in taxes than it costs to treat someone for lung cancer. So is smoking as bad as the media claim? Have the government interfered with the industry to such an extent that they have in essence just created new problems? And what do the people effected, such as smokers and tobacconists have to say about it? Too find out more about smoking and the issues that is raises make sure you watching channel four and nine oclock on Friday, you may never see the smoking industry the same way again. Another convention used was the quick fire facts. With limited time we thought that by engaging the audiences interest via such fact as 10 Million cigarettes sold every minute would encourage the audience to learn more by watching our documentary. But will all of our pieces appeal to our target group?

Given the outline we initially set for our target audience, i believe all three mediums of which we produced would ideally suit our target audience. Although if we were to make our documentary again i wouldve liked to include some more things of which appeal to teens/young adults such as celebrities who smoke. However given the time constraints and our limitations in the group (4 Boys) I believe we did a very good, and considered job when choosing and aiming at our target demographic. 2. How Effective Is the combination of your main task and ancillary tasks? I believe that all of our pieces create a fantastic end product, Up In Smoke. The relationship all three

end products share with each other is undoubtedly one of the strongest points our group has created, especially considering that all three pieces were spearheaded by different members of the group with everyone else contributing, ideas, discussion and also criticising in order to make the medium better. Similarly the consistency and house style of all items all connect back to the documentary. For example we used one model throughout, of whom happened to be group member, Rich. By doing this when reading the article, the audience will see this persona, and then they shall see him again in the documentary, therefore it would be fair to say Rich was the face of our advertising and actual piece.

Richard, The face of Up In Smoke Similarly to aid the cohesion of all three pieces, we used the same soundtrack in the background of both our documentary and our radio trail, this was once more to help the house style of our documentary, but also that if the audience heard it, they would then hopefully be reminded of the documentary. Moreover because of the youthful, upbeat feel to the music it helps create a positive aura around all pieces, of which can only aid the creative combination of the three final products. Furthermore I feel that despite their similarities all three products are in fact very different. Our double page article is quite text heavy, yet modern and would mainly appeal to our target demographic of the free thinking intelligent teen, where our radio trail with its fact filled all talking ethos is probably more likely to appeal to the older listener, particularly considering that the majority of radio listeners are over the age of 25 and unlikely of picking up a magazine article that features a hooded teen smoking on a

park bench. However i feel that our documentary caters for both sets of people, despite one of which not being our main target demographic, which is only a tribute to the effectiveness of all three products. So in conclusion to this section, and so as to answer the question, i think the three products form together very successfully to form a very convincing and versatile package, able of reaching various demographics of people, whilst still retaining its relevance to our chosen target group 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback For our main feedback we gave 10 standardized questionnaires out to people of our media class. Below are the results.

The majority of people questioned did enjoy the smoking subject matter that we depicted. We expected this type of result to come out, as other than our group, there is only one other male in the class, meaning the vast majority of people questioned weren't in our target demographic. Moreover i feel this to be a help rather than a hindrance in our evaluation, as these would be people of whom wouldn't necessarily watch the documentary, however judging from the evidence we made a very interesting and intriguing product for the audience.

Similarly it would appear in this graph we stirred some emotions with the audience with the majority saying that we did in fact change the way they viewed the smoking industry, something of which was our initial aim. Similarly to the previous question we must also take into consideration the vast majority of those questioned weren't in our main target demographic, which is even more pleasing for us to see this kind of reaction.

All of those questioned thought that our background music fitted with the documentaries ethos, of which i aforementioned was dwelled on by us as a group. Moreover i feel proud to know that the song was completely original yet sounded so professional.

Moreover it would appear that our radio trail also was effective in that it appealed to those of whom werent in our priority target group. Largely i feel this is due to its universal conventions being used.

The documentary was majoratively believed to look professional, i feel this result is one of the truest to form as those questioned were all A2 Media students of whom themselves wouldve watched numerous documentaries like ourselves in order to help their project.

This was a major issue in the creation of our documentary, sound levels. As we were experimenting with sound levels in some frames, it may of appeared to be different in the documentary, despite our best efforts to stop any differentiation in sound.

Contrapuntally to the last piece of research it would appear that all of our sounds flowed smoothly, making us believe that some members of those questioned were answering erratically or incorrectly, making the past two pieces of research somewhat unreliable. However i feel that our sound levels were adjusted correctly, as not only could i not tell the difference while watching our documentary, i did it myself! it may of been when we used the sound levels to make some people talking loudly that misled those questioned.

We chose this to be our concluding question, Did you learn anything, and everyone answered Yes. I find this to be the most gratifying result at the end of our work, as we did what any documentary should do, to teach, and give information. So in conclusion to our questionnaire i feel that judging upon the results we have received back from people, it would appear we did a good job, and that our documentary was a success, despite it obviously being a low budget production, we achieved what any documentary sets out to do. To educate, entertain and inform. 4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and planning and evaluation stage? The Internet played a vital role throughout the whole process. We did vast amounts of research Online, using such websites as Youtube, Wikipedia, The Guardian Online and many more, however we also blogged all of our research on Blogger. Moreover we used the Online video site Youtube to upload and share our work with not only the world, but with each other, due to the technical constraints of working on both Macs and Windows bring.

Despite none of use having a previous knowledge of Blogger, we took to it quite well, and i even modified our layout and title to make our blog stand out from other groups, to make it more appealing aesthetically, as well as in keeping with our then established house style. We made good use of the blogger facility, by not only uploading our own work, but by specifying our influences on our work, and where we got them from, such as my early uploads and analysis of the show Airline of which i did within the first week of the task.

Despite our early discrepancies with the iMacs, we gradually found them to be very powerful tools, and made full use of their capabilities within production by using such programs as Adobe PhotoShop and Final Cut Express throughout our production of all products.

As a group most of the still images, such as that used in the magazine, as well as those in our documentary were altered by using photoshop, for example in the magazine we blurred and desaturated the image surrounding Rich, using the Sponge tool.

Moreover we used PhotoShop, to make the text in our documentary look clearer, after adding it into Final Cut express

Prior to this process none of us had ever used the video editing suite that is Final Cut Express, however

now i think our group has an in depth knowledge of the program, and all its functions and complex editing forms, such as speed, colour, composition and much more. The Apple INC program was behind all of our editing, transitions and effects that can be seen within our documentary, below is a diagram of the product, and its basics.

Final cut is a very professional piece of software, and to use it was a great advantage in achieving an industry standard piece of work. So far i have only looked at pieces of software that has aided us in the creation of our whole coursework, however we also used various pieces of physical technology as i shall go onto look at.

For our project, we used the college standard Canon HDV, the camera is able of shooting in HD, which is the reason for the high quality of image in our final piece. Moreover the camera aided us with built in tools such as manual, and automatic focus as well as automated white balance, as well as manual white balance, a tool of which we used when shooting the silhouette shots in the latter parts of the documentary.

In correlation with the camera, we used a tripod.

This piece of kit made it very easily to make the panning and titling shots of which can be seen throughout of final piece. Despite it being somewhat unconventional in the eyes of some to use a lot of tripod shots, i think our mix of both handheld and tripod proved to be a great mixture. especially when the two types of shot were aligned after an interview, during a transition to the early montage.

We used this micrphone which convenintly attaches to the microphone to enure a pefect sound match with image to sound when the footage is uploaded to Final Cut Express, we also used the microphone to record our voiceover, and the radio trail, not only because of its high quality, but also its easiness to use.

Largely because of the noise in the editing suite we used headphones. However they actually proved to have more of a significance because when editing, the headphones allowed us to pick out more accurately any sound anomalies, and remove them, also they allowed us to make sure the transitions in sound were not only fluent, but also correct in terms of sound levels. the fianl piece of technology i shall discuss was Live Lite Alesis, a piece of software of which i used to create the sound track, alongside my DJ mixer. The program is essentially like Garageband as featured on the iMacs, however it wouldnt be compatable with the DJ mixer. The program has a gallery of sounds of which can be pieced together using a MIDI controller in order to make a track.

So in conclusion i feel our project to be a success, despite some anxiety at the start. Moreover i feel that for a group of four boys, we have created a universal product that as i aforementioned doesn't only appeal to the target group of which all group members belong too, it also appeals to a wider audience. Thanks for reading my evaluation, and thankyou for looking at our final product of which Rich, Brad, James and I are very proud to display.